The present invention relates to a terminal for establishing an electrical connection with an electric wire mounted on one end of a terminal main body by inserting a round pin-shaped electrical contact at the other end of the terminal main body via a built-in spring terminal, specifically a terminal capable of reducing wear of the electrical contact due to the lateral displacement of the spring terminal and improving the workability when mounting the spring terminal to the terminal main body.
A plurality of electric devices are mounted on an automobile such as an electric vehicle or a hybrid car, and a plurality of electric wires for a large current are connected to these electric devices via connectors. This type of connector is formed by accommodating a round pin-shaped electrical contact and a terminal into which the electrical contact is inserted in a housing respectively. There is known a terminal including a cylindrical terminal main body into which an electrical contact is inserted and a cylindrical resilient contact member accommodated in the terminal main body and applying a contact pressure to the electrical contact.
In the related art, as described in JP-A-2007-173198, an electrical contact 1 for a connector to be inserted into a female terminal is formed in a substantially cylindrical shape in order to connect electric wires to each other as illustrated in FIGS. 1, 3, and 4. The connector electrical contact 1 is disposed inside a cylindrical female contact 11 and has an inner circumference inserted with a rod-shaped male contact 12, and a substantially cylindrical contact main body 2 is formed of a composite material of a conductive member 3 and a spring member 4.
The electrical contact 1 is used in a form in which the electrical contact 1 is sandwiched between the female contact 11 and the male contact 12. As described above, in the female terminal of the related art, the connector electrical contact 1 is disposed inside the cylindrical female contact 11. In the connector electrical contact 1, a plurality of elongated holes (slits) 6 having major axes perpendicular to a length direction are formed at predetermined intervals along the length direction of the composite material 5, and the composite material 5 is rounded along the length direction so that the spring member 4 becomes the inside and is formed into a substantially cylindrical shape as illustrated in FIG. 3 to form the contact main body 2. Then, the contact main body 2 having the substantially cylindrical shape is formed to have a diameter decreasing at the center portion and elasticity on the radially outward. Therefore, the male contact 12 is pressed by the spring force of the connector electrical contact 1.